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Mac OS X 10.6 to Drop PowerPC Support?

Monday September 24, 2007 8:01 am PDT by Arnold Kim
As we approach the release of Apple's Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard), Appleinsider suggests that this may be the last major Mac OS revision that supports the PowerPC architecture.

Looking ahead, those people familiar with Apple development cycles speculate that Mac OS X 10.6 will exclude support for PowerPC-based Macs entirely, requiring that users have one of the company's Intel-based systems which first began making their way to market in early 2006.


Cited as speculation, Apple may not yet have made a decision on this matter. Apple has made no announcements about Mac OS X 10.6. Based on the most recent Mac OS development cycles, Mac OS X 10.6 would not likely ship until 2009.

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christian_k
158 months ago

...and only fundamental difference between G4 and G5 is 32/64 bitness. It would make sense to only support G5 or not support PPC at all if the next big cat (10.6) would be 64-bit only — but WHY ON EARTH would they make it 64-bit only as they now tout the wonderful feature of letting 32bit and 64bit hardware live nicely together under the same roof? No, that's not going to happen.


They won't do that.
There are a lot of Intel based Minis, MacBooks, MBPs and iMacs that don't have 64 bit CPUs. The Mini got the C2D only 2 months ago. When 10.6 comes out in 2009, they won't exclude systems that are only two years old.

Christian
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Kendall015
158 months ago

manufacturers of processor upgrades. There are still a few out there, cranking out PPC G3 and G4s. They might eventuallly get some G5s, but that's doubtful.

If PPC support is dumped, and I don't doubt that it will be, it's just a question of when, they're going to lose a major part of their business. It's time to diversify!:eek:


Once this news gets out, expect lower prices on eBay for PPC macs :-)
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WestonHarvey1
158 months ago
Huh?

OSX will have to be multi processor to keep support for the upcoming iPods and iPhones which run (quite well) on Samsung ARM processors


What does that mean? There have been multiprocessor PowerPC Macs for years and years. Quad G5s anyone?
Rating: 1 Votes
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brianus
158 months ago

By late 2009, it would have been 4 years since the last new PPC mac was sold.


Not so; new PPC Macs were still being sold at least as late as August 2006, when the Mac Pro was introduced. Plenty of 17" and 12" PowerBooks and iBooks were also sold in '06, too, to say nothing of the XServes, which remained G5s until less than a year ago.

In any event, since Tiger will have been out for 2.5 years when Leopard ships (assuming it's still on time, as now appears the case), shouldn't we be expecting Cougar (or whatever) to be coming around April 2010 at the earliest?
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edesignuk
158 months ago

OSX will have to be multi processor to keep support for the upcoming iPods and iPhones which run (quite well) on Samsung ARM processors

The mobile version of OS X for iPhones/iPods has nothing to do with this.
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Moof1904
158 months ago
That sucks. There's a lot of life left in the PPC Macs.
Rating: 1 Votes

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